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A BRIEF PSYCHOANALYTIC LOOK AT 'SHAME'

Several psychoanalytic authors have considered the major role that shame plays in the psychicapparatus. Shame is the affective response to a conscious or unconscious sense of failure andinferiority in relation to the ideal.

Freud

Freud's brief consideration of shame seems to be connected to his early attention to narcissism,self-regard and the ego ideal. The ego ideal here was a structure created by the internalizationof cultural values, idealized parental representations, and moral precepts to guide the actionsand contours of the self. n !"n #arcissism! $%&%(, shame became for Freud a defense ratherthan an interpersonal subjective e)perience $a reaction formation against e)hibitionistic*se)ualdrives(.

+oving from his conception of instincts, he discussed an agency of the mind that was to be!conscience,! and to function as a watch dog to the ego e)erting behavioral and cognitivecontrol over the drives. This agency he called the ego ideal or ideal ego was to be theforerunner of the super ego in his structural model. Freud suggested that the !ideal ego! wasinvested with narcissism lost from the sense of original perfection emanating from the infantileego and determines the subjective sense of self-respect $i.e., self-regard, and self-esteem(.

Freud e)plicitly related the ego ideal to self-regard and to its dependence on narcissistic libido.The inability to love, to invest in an object, lowered self-regard and lead to feelings of inferiority.ere Freud euated feelings of inferiority with the functions of the ego ideal. Freud ended hisessay with a discussion of object love as a means of rediscovering lost narcissism throughnarcissistic idealization of, and investment in, the libidinal object. t is interesting to speculatehad Freud not turned his focus to the "edipal omple) at this point, he might have offered aframewor/ for an elaboration of shame as a central affect underlying narcissistic phenomena.

Early Object Relati!"# Narci""i"$ a!d S%a$e

0eich $%&12( in her paper on self-esteem regulation identified a /ind of narcissist whosegrandiose fantasies and limited object relationships gain inflated self esteem and bouts ofhelplessness, rage and an)iety from their !narcissistic injuries.! 0eich noted that !contempt!toward the injuring idealized object is shifted to the self as a reflection of feelings of inferiorityand !shameful e)posure! $page 342(.

5acobson $%&1( was interested in feelings of vulnerability and failure in regard to the ego ideal.She related this to narcissism and destructive early objects. 5acobson noticed in her patients atendency toward shame reactions and feelings of inferiority. She suggested shame developedfrom e)posure $lac/ of control( and failure $with some reference to penis envy(. 6nticipating7ohut, she indicated that shame freuently reflects deficiencies $not conflict( that the individualfeels incapable of remedying. 8assive, masochistic and dependent proclivities are present,

which may lead to ineptitude, evo/ing shame and inferiority.

Spero $%&9( suggested that shame evolves from negative ego ideals, !those aspects ofsuperego structure which never gain complete internalization.! $page 31:( These superegoelements are differentiated as introjects and split object representations, contrasted withinternalization's of whole objects attained through identification. Spero suggests that shamereflects !unstable self-other boundaries,! and negative and devaluing internalized objectrepresentations that have remained alien to self-structure.

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;orrowing from +ahler here, Spero believed that self-object differentiation is incomplete,leading to the threat of diffusion of the self's boundaries by envy of the !observing other!, thusimpinging on the self's separate and uniue identity. ntrojects and part-object representationspredominate over true identifications and therefore threaten the separate and uniue e)istenceof the self.

7ingston $%&94( suggested that shame could be understood as a movement from !self-narcissism! to !object-narcissism.! Self-narcissism is defined as an attempt to maintain a stable,integrated and positive self-representation.

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The shame prone person is ambitious and success driven responding to all failures in pursuit ofmoral perfection and e)ternal success. 7ohut believes that clinical healing ta/es place when ashift in narcissistic investment occurs. t becomes therapeutic as the analyst demonstratesacceptance of the patients' grandiose self. The patient shifts some narcissistic investment intothe idealization of the analyst. Thus, the idealization of the analyst and the subseuent wor/ingthrough of empathic failures transforms the patients e)hibitionistic grandiose self toward a moreauthentic self-esteem and progressive self-stabilization.

Treat$e!t C!clu"i!

n much psychoanalytic literature shame has been mostly considered a defense againste)hibitionism*grandiosity. +y clinical wor/ however, leads me to understand shame as primarilyan affective e)perience from which defenses develop. >ven when shame in fact serves asdefense, the affective e)periential nature of shame needs to be understood and ac/nowledged.Shame is a genuine human affliction that reuires treatment, which may be freuentlyoverloo/ed in part because it inevitably reverberates with shame e)periences in the therapist. nother words, because most therapist have not e)perienced their own full shame analysis, theycollude with the patient to /eep these feelings unrecognized and une)amined. Shame then, isever-present in the therapeutic encounter@ and unless it is adeuately understood andconsidered transferential interpretations freuently seem to be criticisms or irrelevant.

Shame presents in various ways, often very subtle. Seldom will a patient spea/ e)plicitly ofshame, $in part because of it's unconscious nature( but may spea/ of feeling worthless,invisible, pathetic, ridiculous, or foolish. t is helpful to learn the language of shame. t is alsobeneficial to become familiar with defenses of shame including addiction, denial, withdrawal,rage, perfectionism, e)hibitionism, and arrogance. t is almost always present in patients withimpulse control issues.

Shame has different significance in the treatment of different types of pathology. For theneurotic, it will tend to relate to failure in action, often reflecting defensive passivity againstoedipal aggression, competition, and desire. For patients with primarily narcissistic phenomena,shame will be more pervasive and will be in the foreground of all aspects of narcissistic

vulnerability.